If he was a true nerd he would have done the math. An 8oz "cup" of coffee contains about 100mg of caffeine on average (but varies wildly, that's ok his "cup" is probably not 8oz either). While I could not find caffeine content in Shasta Diet Soda, Diet Coke contains 45mg/12oz can. In a 2 liter bottle, there are 68 fluid ounces.

So 1-2 cups of coffee is 100-200 mg, while 2 liters of diet soda is 250mg. Given the margin of error is so high, they're roughly the same, but I predict more bathroom trips in the afternoon.

McDonald's coffee seems to have a decent dosage of caffeine. Say what you want about the color, flavor, or strength, it does provide an average amount of caffeine according to my sensors.

I think this is due to the type of beans and the roast. Lighter roasts don't break down as much of the caffeine as a darker roast, and cheaper robusta beans contain more caffeine to begin with. A cup of strong tasting dark roast arabica coffee will typically have less caffeine than a watery cup of light roast robusta truck stop coffee.

McDonald's coffee seems to have a decent dosage of caffeine. Say what you want about the color, flavor, or strength, it does provide an average amount of caffeine according to my sensors.

I think this is due to the type of beans and the roast. Lighter roasts don't break down as much of the caffeine as a darker roast, and cheaper robusta beans contain more caffeine to begin with. A cup of strong tasting dark roast arabica coffee will typically have less caffeine than a watery cup of light roast robusta truck stop coffee.

FWIW, McDonalds has been using 100% arabica coffee for maybe 4 or 5 years now. Which I guess really hammers the point that there are an awful lot of variables when it comes to coffee, species and roast among them.

That said, and I'm kind of ashamed to admit it, I don't completely hate McDonalds coffee. Seems to go well with their heart-exploding other breakfast items. While I'd put fast food chain coffee near the bottom of my coffee list, I'd put theirs on the top of the fast food bracket.

And for anyone who thinks the McFlavour of a McCarton McCup of McCoffee from a McRestaurant is just a bit too McStrong... go to Nepal...There they boil a litre of water and put in 1 (one) granule of coffee for less than.3 seconds, and that is considered strong enough already.I never found a decent cup there, not even in the capital of Pussymandu. I even ordered the strongest espresso the chap could make and it was less tasty than... than... than I dont know what.The tea there on the other hand... goooooooo

It varies a lot from person to person. If I forget to drink coffee for a couple of days, I spend a day or two with a splitting headache, no energy, and a sick feeling all over. I'm then fine. Some people have the same symptoms for longer, others just have mild lethargy.

Not quite, I see SO many people that "need" their morning cup of coffee and complain when they don't get it, since way before Starbucks was around or popular. I never wanted to be that way, and now I see people that have to spend $5 a day or more for coffee, and I am even more glad I resisted ever drinking it.

Actually I intentionally don't drink coffee, don't want to get sucked in and addicted to it and I stopped drinking soda 2.5 years ago to be healthier.

You may want to rethink getting addicted to coffee as something unhealthy. By and large, the medical & scientific community seem to agree that for most people, the health benefits of drinking coffee [google.com] outweigh the risks.

Coffee is black. Milk with a hint of coffee bean is an entirely different drink. Places like Starbucks put a lot of milk and sugar into their drinks to disguise how bad the coffee is, but if you get a decent blend (I'm particularly partial to 50:50 mocha and mysore) then you have a rich - and not too bitter - drink that you can sip enjoyably.

Actually I intentionally don't drink coffee, don't want to get sucked in and addicted to it and I stopped drinking soda 2.5 years ago to be healthier.

I've bailed on Coffee again. I find too much caffeine makes me edgy and irritable. A light dose from Green Tea is sufficient for most work days. So I have Green Tea with Coconut or Green Tea with Apricot, saving Genmaicha for special days when I want something with a richer taste.

I had a major caffeine dependency in the mid 1990's, going through a pound of Kona in about a week to a week and a half. The stuff I drank was like tar and what I didn't have during breakfast went into a large travel mug with me to work, which I'd sip throughout the day. I was working 14-16 hour days and ruining my physical and mental health, with caffeine as the enabling agent. When I finally wrapped up the projects which were at the core of my labors I took a long weekend, without coffee and realized what I had sunk to and was allowing to happen to myself to meet other people's goals. I started looking for a new place to work, where I could put in 8 hours, get some sun and exercise, enjoy a bit of life and not spend Saturdays going through detox, only to restart the cycle on Monday mornings.

For my tastes Starbucks makes their coffee far to strong. A medium cup will usually last me 2 days. When I make my own coffee it's fairly thin as the first hit of caffeine has the greatest impact, with a declining rate of return on successive sips. Loading the body up with caffeine at some point has no other effect then to channel body energies into overriding it - which creates the physical wreck I once was.

Back when I created this account (see loathed username) I couldn't handle caffeine and was prone to shaking and tremors if I did. Now that I can (I don't know what changed, but for the past few years it's been okay) I find that I don't need it. Alas that I cannot redefine my identity here, too...

My mom let me have a sip of coffee when I was about 5. Every now and then, I have a sip of someone's and think "Yep, this is still disgusting." With sufficient cream or caramel flavoring, it becomes tolerable.
I do drink Coke, but have been meaning to cut back. (Right now it's usually one 12oz. per workday.)

A&W and Dad's are classic root beers with great, smooth taste. IMO nothing beats either one freshly served from the keg (vs the standard syrup mixed into water at the time of serving you see at most places).

But Barq's has bite, and being the only national name brand with caffiene (though there are several smaller brands that do too) it also gets a place in the acceptable root beer list.

Up until a couple years ago, there was no caffeine allowed in non-cola soft drinks in Canada [hc-sc.gc.ca], including things such as Root Beer, Mountain Dew, and Sprite/7-up. They only recently started allowing it, but most drinks didn't change their recipe, possibly because people liked them the way they were. Yeah, so in Canada, Mountain Dew doesn't have caffeine.

The rules changed in 2010. Before that Mountain Dew (and all other non-colas) had no caffeine. And they just ran the same ads, and people who didn't know better got a pacebo effect from guzzeling the stuff.

I'd actually recommend trying the powder/stems that you can order by the pound from amazon for about $12. It's a lot 'rougher' taste, but it's considered the real thing, whereas the bottled stuff or the teabags you get here are like budweiser is to beer. It has a different composition of xanthines [wikipedia.org] (to paraphrase wikipedia) than tea, coffee and chocolate, and it's effects compared to coffee are noticably more relaxing on the nervous system. You feel fairly calm while still getting a boost. It's a presumably

I think it tastes more like wet hay than thistle. Of course, if you don't drink it, there will be a better supply for me.

Cruz de Malta appears to be the standard choice, but I prefer Rosamonte Seleccion Especial, which has a stronger flavor. I think that the best deals are to be found online. Order the yerba (the weed itself) in 1 kilo bags, 10 or 12 at a time to amortize the shipping cost, which is usually too high for a single bag.Get a nice mate (=cup=gourd) and bombilla (straw with strainer). After some experience with fancier ones, I prefer the simplest gourds with no decoration. They usually come with a bit of pulp, that you need to soak and scoop out with a spoon. Part of the ritual.

Ha! There was a great old Saturday Night Live parody of the old Folgers Crystals ads (in those, they'd supposedly replace some swank restaurant's coffee with Folgers instant coffee and use a hidden camera to catch all the customers reactions). The bit was "We're at Cedars-Saini hospital, where we've just secretly replaced the blood with Folgers Crystals..."

And made in a percolator on the stove; not one of those fancy, electric drip thingies. Perking coffee is like frying bacon. The aroma and anticipation as it perks is part of the experience.

I'm down to only four of five cups of "real" coffee a day. Undergrad days, nominal was more like ten or fifteen cups a day. I like the taste of coffee as a beverage so I'll switch to decaf in the evenings now.

We grew up drinking coffee as a social drink: when visitors come you serve them coffee and it was also used when the family gathered to chat or chill.You drink coffee slowly while sitting down.Now, I only have one cup of coffee a day, which is usually when I first wake up and it literally takes me a good 20 minutes to finish it. This quietness helps me think through the day and also go through my junk mail (paper ones). It's a relaxing ritual.

I don't understand people who are so addicted to it that they would drink coffee while walking or catching the train. What's the point?

I will admit that I do love the taste of coffee, but most of the time caffeine fucks me up. I've occasionally tried decaff, but it's shit, I'd rather just go without or risk take the hit.

I find tea never gives me the same issues, so I'm a 5+ cups a day man. I've only been up 3 hours, and I've had 3 cups already (I did a big pot of 10 year old pu-erh), so I guess today will be a 10-cup day. I have blacks, whites, oolongs, greens, and even some tea-less teas (rooibos

Caffeine is physiologically addicting, and detoxification takes a long time and is unpleasant. A cup of coffee contains about 2-3 times a reasonable therapeutic dose, which makes addiction really, really easy.

If I were prescribing caffeine to an average, healthy adult male, I'd say 3 cans of Diet Coke (equiv. one cup of coffee) spaced evenly throughout the day, and expect at least two days of hangover-like symptoms after quitting.

Even though I suggested it, in some ways I'm in two minds about caffeine addiction. I think some people, even those with addiction-prone personalities (I hate the term "addictive personalities"), such as myself, just don't get caffeine.There was a time when I'd stick 8 cups of strong percolated coffee down me a day, and I don't recall any caffeine-addiction like symptions. I claim I was more of a taste-related addiction than a biochemically-active-compound addict. It was only one particular coffee brand and

Sadly, me:Wake upWalk to coffee potPrepare the brew (4 scoops of grounds, 6.5 cups of water according to the holder)Start the makerFeed dogJump in showerChug a cup of coffee (leaves one cup for the wife....a lot of that water steams off)Jump in car.Out the door to work in 15 minutesAnd if you're worrying, somewhere in there I got dressed too.

I need my coffee. Not a lot, just the one cup, but I am caffiene dependent. I get migraines, and one of the triggers for me is lack of caffiene once I've gotten used to

Interestingly, that is what I was going to post about tea. For a lot of people in England, tea is the all-occasion drink and activity. Someone visits your house? Offer them a cup of tea (witch biscuit where possible). Someone gets some bad news? Make them a cup of tea. Need to celebrate (and it's too early for alcohol)? Tea! Work's too hard? Time for a tea break...

I'm English. I grew up in a family of tea-swillers who will routinely work through several pints of the stuff every day, with some coffees on top. My in-laws are much the same. In fact everybody I know seems to consume huge amounts of caffeine, all day every day. It's endemic. I have no idea what the average caffeine intake is around here, but it has to be pretty high. If they were drinking beer at that frequency, everybody would be walking around constantly half drunk.

I don't drink tea (except when I'm ill) and I can't stand coffee. I will very occasionally drink cola/ lemonade / similar if I'm at the pub and not drinking beer, or as a mixer. I will eat a small amount of chocolate a few times a week. Most people tell me I'm one of the most laid-back people they know.

In my younger days, I went out drinking and spent an entire night consuming red bull + vodka. I got to bed at 3 or 4 in the morning, feeling pretty good. Went straight to sleep.. Being used to alcohol, my body processed off the vodka quite quickly. However the caffeine affected me a lot more profoundly. By seven in the morning I was up, cooking dinner and vacuming. By eight I was watching Dr Who with my face 8 inches from the screen and twitching uncontrollably.

Not really sure what I'm saying, or what point I'm trying to make. I do think the world would be a better place if people consumed less caffeine.

Actually, the renaissance and the scientific revolution of the 1600s-1700s pretty much perfectly coincides with tea replacing ale as the main drink for the general public. We'd still be in the middle ages without caffeine.

Yea, sure... or, you know, it could be the fact that once tea replaced ale, the majority of the population was no longer spending their days in a drunken stupor...

I have found a cup of timely coffee to be a mood enhancer, not merely a caffeine-delivery solution. It loses efficacy if I overdone, but around 20 ounces (.6 liter) of a light to medium blend first thing in the morning and again mid-afternoon are incredibly invigorating.

I drink two 20 oz cups of green tea most days at work. It's low in caffeine so I don't get too bad withdrawals (which are almost always day-long migraines) from it, and good quality green tea tastes nice enough by itself I don't need to add sweeteners to it.

Otherwise, a couple of times a year I like a nice, thick, rich and super sweet coffee drink, about half milk half water...

I found it surprising that tea surpassed soda in the poll. I guess that is just because in my professional life, I hardly ever see anybody drinking tea. I do from time to time, maybe a few times a year, but soda is a several times a day drink for me and for most people I know.

I discovered it when I took the factory tour of Celestial Seasonings. It's a highly caffeinated black tea and is mighty good and according to the packaging more caffeinated than coffee. You can only get it at the factory and online though. I highly recommend it! CAN YOU TELL I AM DRINKING IT NOW?

While I do enjoy chocolate (but I eat it for the taste, not the caffeine) and do drink a Coke every now and then, the soda I mostly drink is Sprite (no caffeine). I know too many people that claim they have to have coffee every morning before they can do anything, or are irritable until they have their coffee, or people that drink it literally all day. I don't want to get addicted or dependent like all of these people, and I can wake up and concentrate just fine without needing any kind of stimulant. How

Chocolate (unless it's been infused/mixed with caffeine bearing extract, coffee beans, or tea) has theobromine which is a close relative of caffeine. Pure chocolate has no caffeine. The kick from theobromine is much lighter and shorter lived than caffeine.
Ref: http://www.xocoatl.org/caffeine.htm [xocoatl.org]
Let's discontinue the urban legend of caffeine in chocolate.
At the same time I'm all for well made mocha that brings the joys of coffee/caffeine together with chocolate/theobromine!

I used to drink a quite a bit of coffee about two years ago. I'd brew up a pot in the morning, have a cup before leaving for work, and then bring a 16 oz thermos with me to work. Visiting my parents usually involved sitting around the kitchen drinking a pot of coffee in the morning and then another pot in the afternoon.

But, I started having really bad PVST episodes (heart palpitations) while I was exercising. So I dropped caffeine in the hope it would help, and it did. Instead of severe PVST several times a week, I'd have a mild episode maybe once or twice a month.

Luckily for me, caffeine withdrawal wasn't bad at all. What really got me was how dependent I was on caffeine to supplement my bad sleep habits. It took maybe three months before I could finally operate normally again, without feeling completely run down and like I needed a nap. In fact, I feel better now than when I drank coffee.

But what I really missed most about coffee wasn't the coffee, it was having a nice hot drink to sip on. And just recently I've discovered tea! Yes, tea does have caffeine, but for some reason it doesn't give me PVST when I exercise. So now I'm a tea drinker. I prefer black teas to green teas. For some reason, green teas seem to give me a weird headache feeling (like too much caffeine or something).

Normal tea blends have much less caffeine than your average coffee. Assuming you're only drinking a few cups of tea a day, you're unlikely to be approaching anything even remotely like the amount of caffeine you were consuming when you were drinking through a couple of communal pots of coffee each day.

This is a tough question. If I just really need caffeine, I'll hit the Monster; If it's cold or rainy out, then I'll go with quad mocha; but I drink tea all day long on a daily basis. I'd still be willing to bet I average more caffeine from the occasional coffee and soda than from 4-5 cups of tea a day.

I can get the equivalent of 100 cups of strong coffee for $3.87 at Walmart. The pills even have a vague banana-lemon flavor to them. Someone tell me - can you even buy ONE cup of coffee at starbucks for that price?

I like the way coffee tastes, and I think it's good for sipping slowly on a lazy Sunday afternoon. But it also burns the hell out of my stomach if I forget to pre-dose with tums and it's expensive and brewing it is annoying.

I knew a guy that drank TWO extra large triple triple coffees from Tim Hortons every morning.
He now has diabetes.
As for me, I've cut myself down to 1 afternoon coffee a day. And I realized the portion doesn't matter. Whether its big or small i still want more when its finished. So I get a small or medium instead of a large.

It ain't the coffee. It is the added sugar. Do you know much restaurants add to these drinks? The original tooth rotting standard, Coke, is pretty low in added sugar. You only get about 1/4 cup of it in a 12 oz can. Many of of these pre-sweetend coffees, teas, etc have 2X as much sugar per oz and pre-made cocktail mixers usually have 3 X as much. Your friend could easily be downing more than a cup of sugar per drink. A good way to get diabetes. I have it too, which why I know so much about this shit

It probably means that one doesn't care about whether it's from coffee, tea, energy drinks, as long as it contains caffeine. Also, a fun fact, caffeine can be trivially cold-water extracted from caffeine+ASA pills. The resultant powder can be snorted.

Regional distinction here, lots of places (including where I grew up) call it 'pop', but it depends on where you're from. Personally, I've never run into a place where 'coke' is used as a generic name for it, and I haven't a clue what falls into the 'other' category...

There are a number of things in chocolate -- and there does appear to be some validity to there being a small amount of caffeine in chocolate, I would ask that you provide specific citations which show that caffeine is the strongest component. It may be the strongest in terms of its stimulant effectiveness, however the quantity of caffeine vs theobromine leaves it in the "also-ran" category in typical batches of chocolate from the reading I've done.